IF YOU GO

The genre-blending, always-touring group will bring its particular strain of folk/bluegrass/rock/punk to Grand Rapids’ DeltaPlex Arena on Feb. 10, 2013. Although that’s the biggest local venue they’ve played, the Avetts aren’t a household name – yet. Here’s everything you need to know about the increasingly popular, and increasingly difficult to describe, band:

Who are they? Scott Avett and his younger brother Seth are the core, singing, songwriting and playing multiple instruments each – although Scott plays primarily banjo, and Seth, guitar. Bassist Bob Crawford is the unofficial third “brother,” and cellist Joe Kwon and drummer Jacob Edwards are touring members.

History: The Concord, North Carolina-based brothers played in different groups that eventually merged in the late 1990s. They released their first EP, “The Avett Bros.,” in 2000, and recorded five full-length independent studio albums before famed producer Rick Rubin signed them to his American Recordings label in 2008. Three more EPs and three live albums round out their dense discography.

The Feb. 10 show and the current tour: It’s dubbed “an evening with,” which means there’s no opening act. So expect the Avetts to play a lengthy set. About 4,000 tickets have been sold so far (the DeltaPlex holds about 5,000), and general admission floor tickets are sold out. The date is one of only six U.S. gigs the Avetts are playing this winter, kicking off Feb. 9 in Madison, Wisconsin and ending Feb. 16 in Charleston, West Virginia.

The new album:“The Carpenter” varies from plaintive emotionalism such as “Live and Die,” with its upbeat, melodic chorus and countrified shuffle; to the driving rocker “Paul Newman Vs. the Demons,” which opens with a squeal of distorted-guitar feedback. Rolling Stone declared the record one of the top 50 albums of 2012, calling the Avetts “the best pop band in the alt-country corral. On their seventh album they complete an evolution from neo-bluegrass pickers to pure pop tune-crushers.”

The Avett audience: The band’s diverse sound stubbornly refuses easy categorization. The Avetts have been lazily lumped into the jam-band genre, which, frankly, is where the more difficult-to-describe acts often end up. (They’ve opened for Dave Matthews Band and Widespread Panic, so the tag sort of makes sense.) Expect a similarly diverse crowd of folkers and neo-hippies standing next to rockers who aren’t averse to banjos and cellos and Beatlesque harmonies.

Testimonials: Blogger and music critic John Sinkevics declared the Avetts' last Grand Rapids gig one of the 10 best shows of Meijer Gardens’ 10-year live-concert history, who wrote in his '09 review, “if the band's sometimes frenetic stage demeanor and hyperactive instrument-switching at Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park made it seem like a prime candidate for a heavy dose of Ritalin, you'd never sell that remedy to the hundreds of jam-band-like devotees who pressed up to the stage to cheer their heroes on.” In ’08, Bill Chapin of the Jackson Citizen-Patriot gushed, “ Their music exists at this weird intersection of folk music and punk rock. They're not the first group to explore that territory (The Pogues, Split Lip Rayfield and Ani DiFranco are just a few that leap to mind), but few seem so perfectly at home in both worlds.”